Father/Son Duo... Ideas wanted..

[Laeelin]

Basically, my son (8 years old) and I are making a pair of character to duo. He wants us to both be halflings, and he wants his character to do traps, buffing, and melee. I think that a warchanter with some rogue should fit his wishes perfectly.

My character needs to do the healing, and I think that an Intimitank cleric/FvS would be fun, but I have not found any builds. Is this something that is reasonable to do in the current game?

Thoughts/Suggestions?

[Doganpc]

I think you're going in the right direction... Warchanter w/ Favored Intimidator. Would suggest you look at the Bardbarian for direction there or even Anthios' classic Bard (although its a little more support than melee). Anthios' has others and they're linked in the signature of her posts. You might have to go Intimidating Cleric more spell versatility and I'm sure i've seen builds that cover it. Probably Monk2/Cleric18 if possible...

Dogan
Do or do not, there is no try.

[Arintal]

bard can heal

[Laeelin]

bard can heal

He doesn't want to heal I gave him a list of things characters can do and he picked 3 that he thought would be the most fun to him... Melee, Buffing, and Trapmaster.

He isn't really interested in healing, and I'd feel safer with me healing anyway!

If what he wants to play didn't fit so well with a bard, I'd be playing one.

[GhoulsTouch]

2 rogue/6 ranger/12 bard maybe?

Maybe even just 2 rogue/18 ranger.

A buffer, trapsmith, that also melees is kind of stretching it so the latter would be my choice.

2 Paladin/18 Favored Soul might be good for you.

(Both of you would be able to heal to some extent)

[xanvar]

2 rogue/6 ranger/12 bard maybe?

Maybe even just 2 rogue/18 ranger.

A buffer, trapsmith, that also melees is kind of stretching it so the latter would be my choice.

2 Paladin/18 Favored Soul might be good for you.

I agree with you, ranger Rogue is a great combo. Ranger gets some good buffs and can use wands to help out sp wise. It should give your son a solid character to play.

[dasein18]

For you go with Cleric or FvS. A halfing cleric with monk splash was my favorite.. favorite build pre-FvS.
For your son, a ranger-roque mix would probably be good and augment some of the spells you carry. What do you think he would like about bard? In a duo I would not pick a bard mix.

[Thrudh]

Don't go too crazy with multi-classing...

Ranger/Rogue for him is the way to go... invest some points in INT, so he can keep all the skills up... don't worry about him being optimal at end-game or anything... make sure he can get all traps and do well at combat immediately and throughout the low levels...

My 7-year old son gets bored with characters when the leveling slows down... His highest is 11... usually he rerolls and starts a new one around 8th level...

Our best combo was me playing a wf wizard, and him with a wf fighter/barbarian. I could heal him and haste and displace us (both of them are 11 - although we haven't played them in a month)

[systemstate]

Basically, my son (8 years old) and I are making a pair of character to duo. He wants us to both be halflings, and he wants his character to do traps, buffing, and melee. I think that a warchanter with some rogue should fit his wishes perfectly.

My character needs to do the healing, and I think that an Intimitank cleric/FvS would be fun, but I have not found any builds. Is this something that is reasonable to do in the current game?

Thoughts/Suggestions?

+1 for being a cool Dad and spending time with your kid.

[Optimistic_Guardian]

Me an my gf have a simple duo, me FS/Rogue and her pure paladin. Works great up to our present level 8.

Just an Idea.

[Arintal]

Me an my gf have a simple duo, me FS/Rogue and her pure paladin. Works great up to our present level 8.

Just an Idea.

I think Pal/rog + 18fav/2monk would be even better

[Musashiclaw]

My son plays a Ranger/rogue splash. He loves doing traps like yours. He likes bastards swords so he is dual weilding ranger who can use a bow, do traps and fight. He has learned how to use a hireling so when I am raiding he can jump on in and solo delera's 1. My son is only 5 so doing buffs or chants is out of the question but I have taught him how to cast STR and His wolf(he calls it his friend).

For My toon I play whatever I am leveling at the time. You dont have to be locked to a certain toon because of hirelings are nice. Will your son get his toon to 12+? If so then you might want to do some type of healer as your toon.

Are you in a guild that will group with you and your son? If so then maybe you dont have to have toons that are a perfect team.

When my son and I are grouping there are always people on our level who is looking for xp so I will let them join us knowing at some point my son might run thru a trap or get us killed. BUT most of the time its my son saying to me "hey why did that little kid(some halfling) run ahead.. (why is always the halflings?)

Good Luck. I really enjoy my time playing with my son the only down fall is I have spent more plat on his character than i have on my 4 toons.

[Bones400]

I too am trying to think up the best combo to go along with my 11 year old son. He's decided on a THF Pally build so he will be somewhat self sufficient (I've taken the same build solo through Hard/Elite content in Storm Reach). I'm trying to decide between a battle cleric type of char (THF), a Cleric/Rogue so I could handle traps, or a pure offensive casting, max wisdom Cleric.

We are restricted to 28 point base builds (no special classes or races) which makes it interesting for sure. I'm not too concerned about endgame content at this point. Just some characters that will allow us to access most content with just the two of us. I tried talking him into going Ranger/Rogue because he does like TWF and he would be able to handle traps and chests so I could have more wiggle room with the cleric based character, but he won't budge from Pally now. I really would like one of us to be able to do traps and chests.

[stormarcher]

He doesn't want to heal I gave him a list of things characters can do and he picked 3 that he thought would be the most fun to him... Melee, Buffing, and Trapmaster.

He isn't really interested in healing, and I'd feel safer with me healing anyway!

If what he wants to play didn't fit so well with a bard, I'd be playing one.

mhmm. I cant really think of any build that could do that, that are halfling.

Maybe you could convert this build into a halfling:
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php...42#post3033942

If you and your son like the thought of that build Pm me and I could make a halfling version for you.

Maybe even.:

14 Bard(buffs)/ 6 Rogue ( trap capabilities) that uses a bow (there is his melee)??

Or: Ranger,Rogue,Fighter. Ranger gives you melee with buffs and he can self heal/ cast barkskin(which I bet he thinks it looks cool) with all the skillpoints rangers get you could have max trap capabilities and the 1 fighter for extra feats.

Wish you luck on finding anything, hope it all works out for you and your son

[Aesop]

Monk 19/Rogue 1 Light side of the Force
Monk 18/ Paladin 2 Dark Side of the Force

both Halflings

both can heal through wand use and Healing Ki/FoL the second can toss an emergency LoH

If you plan well the Light Side monk can get most/all secret doors and locks... maybe even Disable Traps ... though that makes things a little tight

both can get Sneak attack from Halfling enhancements and/or rogue (come mod 5 the Dark Monk can get Ninja Spy as well)

Halfling Heroes companion could also be useful

set up with Stunning Fist and you are good for most of the game

Stats could get a little tight... but doable

Aesop

[Lukee2012]

Not to derail this thread or anything, but my son will be 8 in a few months. At what age do you think would be ok to introduce him to this game?

Also, what character do you recommend? Something simple until he learns a bit more of the game, and what toon can i make to complement him.

Thanks in advance.

[unbongwah]

If you're willing to be the healer, a pure dwarf barbarian using greataxes is probably the easiest build for a kid new to DDO to play: just teach him to hit Rage before a fight then run around smacking everything not you. Plus as the healer it makes sense for you coach him from behind the lines; over time he'll learn to prioritize targets ("The casters, boy - go for the casters!") and deal with traps ("Fire bad! Bad bad fire!").

[NoMercier]

For all you parents looking to duo with a child please keep in mind the 1 thing that has made the higher levels (11+) much more difficult. Damage! My son is 5 and uses a gamepad quite effectively for basic fighting. The problem comes in when things get difficult and he might need to be tumbling away and healing himself when I can't keep up or I get hit by a nasty hold spell or command or something. When things get busy he says "Dad help me" To which I reply I'm trying but I'm turned to stone or whatever and tell him to just run for a second. His DPS drops and we spend lots of spell points just healing and not killing anything.

That's why I'd be careful about a bard/cleric duo. The dps just isn't there in some cases. Most places you've been before is easy to keep the DPS up with careful planning but when a fight against 1 mob turns into a screen full of casters and ogre's beating on you it gets a bit crazy. Laying down a blade barrier and running sometimes works but not always. We can generally make it through 1 or 2 of these types of encounters but my cleric runs out of Spell points pretty fast.

I think the best duo for a young child and adult is probably a fighter/barbarian warforged and warforged sorcerer/wizard. I can't believe how many times my son has wanted to just go into orchard and kill the rats/destroy the zombie caravan. Its quick. He gets to kill a ton of stuff and it doesn't take long to get there. He's at 2400 kills in the orchard of which probably 2000 are just from those 2 parts.

Luke,
If your son is 8 he's definitely old enough to control a ddo char. The difficulty comes in with monitoring the adult content. (turn of the public channels for him) and probably disabling voice. We group only with my guildmates who almost all have young kids of their own. So they know to keep the profanity to a minimum. And since he's 5 he can't read the public messages so I don't worry about that. The gamepad has improved his combat ability immensely since he can jump turn tumble and block quite easily. When he was using mouse and keyboard he basically could either move or fight but not both.

NoMercyEh

[Doganpc]

If you're willing to be the healer, a pure dwarf barbarian using greataxes is probably the easiest build for a kid new to DDO to play: just teach him to hit Rage before a fight then run around smacking everything not you. Plus as the healer it makes sense for you coach him from behind the lines; over time he'll learn to prioritize targets ("The casters, boy - go for the casters!") and deal with traps ("Fire bad! Bad bad fire!").

You know, the traps do make an interesting dynamic. *Cleric Spot goes off* Hold up boy, I need your character to search for traps... Might have to splash some rogue with that Barb.

Dogan
Keep it fun.

[Thrudh]

Not to derail this thread or anything, but my son will be 8 in a few months. At what age do you think would be ok to introduce him to this game?

Also, what character do you recommend? Something simple until he learns a bit more of the game, and what toon can i make to complement him.

Thanks in advance.

Fighter or barbarian... probably warforged (my son loves playing a giant robot).

Make sure he ONLY plays with you...

Kids learn fast... My 7-year old is actually quite good at this game...